Proto-punk is the music from the mid-1960s to mid-1970s that influenced punk rock. Typically, proto-punk artists are not always themselves classified as punk, and proto-punk is not a distinct musical genre as it includes a wide range of musical backgrounds and styles, including much garage rock.

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Punk music, as a subgenre—indeed a wholly derived musical form of rock n' roll itself—can see a large degree of its generic elements traced back to early rhythm and blues, and further rockabilly groups. Jerry Lott's 1958 record "Love Me" (recorded under "The Phantom") can be seen as a precursor to the punk sound, indeed the very synthesis of what the punk sound is: a fast paced, frenetic rockabilly record which features Lott's ear-splitting, thunderous screaming vocals. In the early and mid-1960s, garage rock bands that came to be recognized as punk rock's progenitors began springing up in many different locations around North America. The Kingsmen, a garage band from Portland, Oregon, had a breakout hit with their 1963 cover of "Louie Louie", cited as "punk rock's defining ur-text".[5] The surf rock craze popularized and developed by Dick Dale and The Beach Boys, began to influence garage and later punk rock, with its lighter, twangier guitar tone.[6][7]

The minimalist sound of many garage rock bands was influenced by the harder-edged wing of the British Invasion. The Kinks' hit singles of 1964, "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night", have been described as "predecessors of the whole three-chord genre—the Ramones' 1978 'I Don't Want You', for instance, was pure Kinks-by-proxy".[8] In 1965, The Who quickly progressed from their debut single "I Can't Explain", a virtual Kinks clone, to "My Generation". Though it had little impact on the American charts, The Who's mod anthem presaged a more cerebral mix of musical ferocity and rebellious posture that characterized much early British punk rock: John Reed describes The Clash's emergence as a "tight ball of energy with both an image and rhetoric reminiscent of a young Pete Townshend—speed obsession, pop-art clothing, art school ambition".[9] The Who and fellow mods The Small Faces were among the few rock elders acknowledged by the Sex Pistols.[10] By 1966, mod was already in decline. U.S. garage rock began to lose steam within a couple of years, but the raw sound and outsider attitude of "garage psych" bands like The Seeds presaged the style of bands that would become known as the archetypal figures of protopunk.[11] With garage leanings, Love's first two albums Love (1966) and in particular Da Capo (1967), began developing a proto-punk sound with songs such as "7 and 7 Is"; which happened to be their only hit single.[12][13] Love's Arthur Lee has been regarded by some[who?] as "the first punk rocker", though Lee wasn't flattered by the phrase because he thought the term punk meant "being somebody's bitch or something like that".[14]

Los Saicos out of Peru recorded one of the earliest protopunk tracks in their 1965 track "Demolicion",[26] The UK's Deviants, in the late 1960s, played in a range of psychedelic styles with a satiric, anarchic edge and a penchant for situationist-style spectacle presaging the Sex Pistols by almost a decade.[27] In 1970, the act evolved into the Pink Fairies, which carried on in a similar vein.[28] With his Ziggy Stardust persona, David Bowie made artifice and exaggeration central—elements, again, that were picked up by the Sex Pistols and certain other punk acts.[29] The Doctors of Madness built on Bowie's presentation concepts, while moving musically in the direction that would become identified with punk. Bands in London's pub rock scene stripped the music back to its basics, playing hard, R&B-influenced rock 'n' roll. By 1974, the scene's top act, Dr. Feelgood, was paving the way for others such as The Stranglers and Cock Sparrer that would play a role in the punk explosion. Among the pub rock bands that formed that year was The 101'ers, whose lead singer would soon adopt the name Joe Strummer.[30]

Bands anticipating the forthcoming movement were appearing as far afield as Düsseldorf, West Germany, where "punk before punk" band NEU! formed in 1971, building on the krautrock tradition of groups such as Can.[31]Simply Saucer formed in Hamilton, Canada in 1973[32] and have been called "Canada's first proto-punk band",[33] blending garage rock, krautrock, psychedelia and other influences to produce a sound that was later described as having a "frequent punk snarl."[34] Considered one of the earliest proto-punk bands, Los Saicos from Lince, in Lima, Peru have been recently rediscovered by European labels[35] and remastered and edited in many countries. In 1964-1966 they recorded 6 singles and were very popular in Peru.

In Japan, the anti-establishment Zunō Keisatsu (Brain Police) mixed garage psych and folk. The combo regularly faced censorship challenges, their live act at least once including onstage masturbation.[36] A new generation of Australian garage rock bands, inspired mainly by The Stooges and MC5, was coming even closer to the sound that would soon be called "punk": in Brisbane, The Saints also recalled the raw live sound of the British Pretty Things, who had made a notorious tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1965.[37]Radio Birdman, cofounded by Detroit expatriate Deniz Tek in 1974, was playing gigs to a small but fanatical following in Sydney.

One of the earliest written uses of the term "punk rock" was by critic Dave Marsh who used it in 1970 to describe the group Question Mark & the Mysterians, who scored a major hit with their song "96 Tears".[38][39] Over the next few years, the term was used occasionally by certain rock critics to describe a number of American bands, mostly active in the mid-to-late '60s, playing music that today would be classified as garage rock: a ragged, highly energetic, often amateurish form of rock and roll.

The term "proto-punk" is of uncertain origins, and has proven difficult to define, and many widely different groups have been so dubbed. Most had a certain attitude or appearance seen as important, as opposed to any specific musical tendencies. According to the Allmusic guide:

Proto-punk was never a cohesive movement, nor was there a readily identifiable proto-punk sound that made its artists seem related at the time. What ties proto-punk together is a certain provocative sensibility that didn't fit the prevailing counterculture of the time ... It was consciously subversive and fully aware of its outsider status ... In terms of its lasting influence, much proto-punk was primitive and stripped-down, even when it wasn't aggressive, and its production was usually just as unpolished. It also frequently dealt with taboo subject matter, depicting society's grimy underbelly in great detail, and venting alienation that was more intense and personal than ever before.[2]

^Buckley 2003, p. 403, "The addition of Simon House(violin/keyboards) in 1974 mellowed the musical assault without damaging the fabric, but with proto-punk Lemmy on the bass the demands of heavy rock would always be satisfied."

^Ohtaka, Toshikazu; Akagawa, Yukiko. "Interview with Mick Farren". Strange Days (Japan). Archived from the original on May 8, 2008. Retrieved 2008-01-10. Soundwise, we wanted to be incredibly loud and violent! That says it all. The hippies wanted to be nice and gentle, but our style was the opposite of that peaceful, natural attitude.